Page:Two Treatises of Government.djvu/16

 author and publisher were both in earnet. I therefore took it into my hands with all the expectation, and read it through with all the attention due to a treatie that made such a noise at its coming abroad, and cannot but confess my elf mightily urpried, that in a book, which was to provide chains for all mankind, I hould find nothing but a rope of and, ueful perhaps to uch, whole kill and buines it is to raie a dut, and would blind the people, the better to milead them; but in truth not of any force to draw thoe into bondage, who have their eyes open, and o much ene about them, as to conider, that chains are but an ill wearing, how much care oever hath been taken to file and polih them.

§. 2. If any one think I take too much liberty in peaking o freely of a man, who is the great champion of abolute power, and the idol of thoe who worhip it; I beeech him to make this mall allowance for once, to one, who, even after the reading of Sir Robert's book, cannot but think himelf, as the laws allow him, a freeman: and I know no fault it is to do o, unles any one better killed in the fate of it, than I, ould have it revealed to him, that this treatie, which has lain dormant o long, was, when it appeared in the world, to carry, by trength of its arguments, all liberty out of it; and that from